Garage Floor

Bob cleaned out the garage and swept the floor  and we rolled out some leftover carpet pad pieces.  We cut and taped the carpet pad to make a huge square, and laid the quilt sandwich out on that.  It was quite nice to kneel on that and pin the quilt!   My granddaughter, Kaylyn, helped me pin, and it made the usually tedious job enjoyable.  Only problem was that we didn't want the foam pad to be pinned to the sandwich so that did slow us way down.  But the job is done, and I have started to QUILT this monster!  Only have it quartered (stitch in the ditch) so far, no fancy stuff yet.  It is a very heavy quilt and I found that I can quilt it better if I stand at the sewing machine instead of sit.  Better leverage and better view.  At least it fits under the sewing machine!  From now on I need to make SMALLER quilts, or get a larger kitchen floor!

Ready to pin

No Floor Space Big Enough

My replacement fabric came and I pieced the back for the Moon Glow Quilt.  Easy.  but it is sooooo huge, I don't have a floor space large enough to lay it out and build my quilt sandwich.  When I made my Cowboy quilt (90" x 90") I said I would never make another quilt that big!  Never say never!  The Moon Glow is supposed to be 110 x 110.  I shortened up the borders and it is now 104" by 104".  That's just 4 in. short of  9 ft square!  It so hard to imagine how big this is!  Bob is going to help me rig up something in the garage so we can lay it out.  I love it when he helps me.  I am so THANKFUL for him.  Oh, by the way, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

"Backed Up"

My Moon Glow quilt is temporarily on hold.  I received backing fabric in the kit, and it's supposed to be big enough to back a 110 x 110 in. quilt.  However, it's 44" wide, and according to the directions, I would use 2-1/2 strips for the width.  Do the math!  2 strips at 44, and 1 piece cut in half is 22.  So 88 and 22.  This is EXACTLY 110.  Hmmmm!  Gotta cut off the selvages, and take some off for seam allowances.  Now it is not wide enough to quilt the quilt!  I wrote an email to the quilt company that sold me the quilt, explaining my problem, and they were very nice and will send me more fabric.  Hmmmmm!  Seems like they ran out of the kind of backing they sent me, and will have to send me new (but similar) backing, enough for 3 full strips.  I will have to return the original 8.25 yards of backing.  Geez, it's always something, isn't it!?

Progress

I have been working hard on the MoonGlow quilt.  I have the top finished now, and I am liking it much much better!  (Whew!)  The borders seem to set the center section apart, and brighten it up too.  This is a very large quilt.  The finished top is 104 x 104, not the 110 x 110 the pattern states .  But then, I did not follow the pattern totally!  I made all the border strips the same size, whereas in the pattern, they get wider as they get darker.  I also added a new fabric, the lightest turquoise to help brighten it up a bit.  I did switch out a couple fabrics, too, from the stars, deleting a dark blue and a dark purple, and substuting a lighter blue, and a lighter purple.  The stars look better to me and do not get lost in that black background.  I love how this has turned out!  In the making of the final stars, I did do paper-piecing, and while not necessarily easier, the points turned out crisp and sharp.  You do have to peal off all the papers afterwards though, and that is a pain, but the result is worth it, in my opinion.  So!  here it is!

I have this on my bed, a California King, so you can see that this is a BIG quilt!  Even bigger than the Cowboy quilt.  It's gonna be a pain to quilt this baby, but I am more experienced now, so we'll see.  I have to go make the backing now.  I have a dark blue backing fabric, and tomorrow I plan on making the quilt sandwich.  I am hoping that I can have this done by Christmas!  Wish me luck.

Moon Glow Stars

I have been working hard on the Moon Glow quilt blocks, and I am not enjoying this very much.  The blocks have quite a few "inset seams" and I cannot seem to get the hang of it.  I also do not like the colors.  There is a dark purple color and a very dark navy blue in some of the the stars that seems to get lost against the black background.  It looks like pieces of the stars are missing, or lopsided.  I am hoping the "connecting blocks" will lighten it up.  Also, my blocks are consistently measuring 11.5 inches, and they are supposed to measure 11.75 inches.  I'm hoping that quarter inch is not gonna cause big headaches.  Here's what I have done so far:  10 different stars.

Moon Glow

Since my finger incident, I have put the deer quilt on hold for awhile.  Free-motion quilting doesn't appeal to me at the moment.  I thought I'd piece another quilt top and then go back to the quilting.  I have started a new quilt.  It's a kit I found online, called Moon Glow.  It's a darker quilt, but beautiful.  I ordered the fabric online and got started as soon as it came.  There are 13 compasses, and 12 log cabin squares.  This was originally a Block of the Month quilt. The pattern/directions is 76 pages long!

Klutz

On Wednesday, I was working on the deer quilt.  I am outline stitching the logs, trees, deer, cabin, etc, and it was going very well.  I must've been a little too confident, or going too fast, or not paying attention, or all of the above!  Anyway, my finger got under the quilting foot and the sewing machine needle plunged right through the fingernail and completely through the finger.  I had green thread sticking out!  The needle broke into 3 sections, the eye of the needle (about 1/2 in. long) was inside my finger, under the nail, completely buried.  In fact, I wasn't even sure if the needle tip was in there.  But I had an odd bulge near my fingertip, and it was extremely sensitive!  Oh my!!  So I called up the doctor, went in for an x-ray, and yes, it clearly showed in the x-ray that I had a needle in my finger!  This facilitated an in-office surgical procedure to remove the needle tip. Strangely enough, it did not bleed until the Dr. started probing for the needle (my finger had been highly numbed up for this.)  The Dr. cut through the pad of the finger so as to not damage the fingernail.  At any rate, I was sent home with antibiotics, pain meds, and a huge blue bandage!  I see the Dr. this afternoon for a post-op check, and I should be good to go again.  I will be more careful in the future for sure!  At least I didn't get any blood on the quilt!

Click on each picture for an enlargement.